By: Zahraa Kadri, Senior Consultant and Josh McLaren, Consultant Air Quality Specialist, Atkins

From big data to intelligent systems, the ‘information age’ is presenting the highways industry with an opportunity to modernise and reap the rewards of greater automation. User expectations are also on the rise, with road users expecting highways operators to leverage technology to improve network operations and decrease traffic and environmental impact.

Yet whilst ‘digital by default’ has been a mantra in other industries for a number of years now, the highways sector is often viewed as being behind the curve when it comes to digital service adoption. Why, in the age of the digital twin, are we not making the progress we might?

As engineers relatively early in our career, we believe we have a unique perspective on the barriers to innovation in highways. With fresh eyes, we can see what is needed in industry and how we can create the right environment for innovation to thrive.

What we should do more of

Utilise more data! We have fantastic individual data systems and collection mechanisms, but they don’t all tie up. Datasets need to be linked together and focus on the whole highways system – there are too many instances where we’re focusing on just one section of the road and not looking at data across the wider network.

There is also too much reticence to use and trust data. We need to start using the information we have to see if it’s any good and truly understand what insights we can get from it. Collecting data is one thing; digging deep and finding those little gems of things you wouldn’t know otherwise is another story.

The danger with data is we start collecting it here, there and everywhere and it gets sucked up in the cloud and never looked at again. We need to give free reign for individuals, SMEs and tech start-ups to dig down into the data to identify trends and inter-linking problems and solutions to really pinpoint where the gains are and what we should be driving forward.

What’s holding us back

Two big barriers to innovation are funding and a willingness to deviate from the norm. Best practice guidelines and regulations have their place, but they’ll never encourage us to innovate; if we always follow current best practice, we’ll continue to do what we’ve always done. We need to be able to push beyond this, and to have the funds available to do so. There’s too much emphasis on the ‘business case’ and not enough on exploration; sometimes research doesn’t yield the answers that you want it to but knowing something doesn’t work is just as valuable as knowing that it does.

Upskilling is also hugely important; we’ve made strides in the last five years to improve our AI and machine learning skillset but it’s still not sufficient to keep up with changing technology. We can’t rely on others to do it for us – we need a base level of understanding of how to automate the analysis process if we’re going to have productive conversations with our data scientist counterparts.

What it takes for innovation to thrive

Ultimately, it comes down to communications and making sure our roads and new technology are more inclusive. Inclusivity is where innovation thrives. Fundamentally, we can’t innovate on our roads if people don’t feel safe and comfortable with technology; to do this, we need to improve communications between road users and operators and create platforms for discussion. This inclusivity also needs to filter down to our design and operations teams, with a ‘no idea is a bad idea’ mentality and more free flowing mixing across disciplines, grades, experiences and backgrounds.

Real change comes from the bottom up, but to achieve this we need to give people the confidence to speak up. People often hide good ideas for fear of putting their hand up; we need to foster environments where ideas can be put forward by anyone and not judged or devalued. Ultimately, we need management to be receptive and to want to listen.

What ‘good’ looks like

An innovative sector is one that takes risks and continuously improves and evolves. People would be encouraged to take risks without being held back by funding or fear of being ‘wrong’. Teams would feel empowered to try new things and wouldn’t get bogged down in reading the manual or doing things by the book – they would feel free to jump in, try out their ideas and see how they work in practice. This is where true innovation comes from.

An innovative sector also requires a new skillset, one that is grown from the earliest stages of education and seen through to universities providing the right skills – whether that’s coding or data analytics – that the marketplace needs. This would create teams that aren’t bound by discipline but have skills that can be applied anywhere, to any problem; where you don’t have to be a ‘techy person’ to be an innovator.

If senior leaders take away just three things from this article, we’d like them to think about: providing the time to think, experiment and take risks; removing the need for innovation to be target driven; and looking outside the traditional engineering skillset to create a truly inclusive multi-disciplinary team. Only with these barriers removed can we bring highways into the information age.

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The Authors

Zahraa Kadri is a Chartered Mathematician and a Senior Consultant within the Atkins’ Digital Asset Management practice. She is involved with digital innovations, asset valuations and leading on analytics across several projects informing key decision-making. Zahraa is on the IAM NxtGen Committee and the PIARC Asset Management Technical Committee.

Josh McLaren is a Senior Consultant Air Quality Specialist in Atkins Environment, with over 6 years’ experience in Environmental Consultancy. He has a MEnvSci in Environmental Science and has co-authored a published paper on the impact of communicating information about air pollution events on public health. Josh is also a Chartered Scientist (CSci). Josh is responsible for undertaking and reviewing air quality assessments for large highways schemes and smaller development jobs. He has been involved with the modelling and assessment of Clean Air Zones (CAZ) for four different geographic areas (air quality lead for two of them).